like Pevney—who must have been talking to my astral projection on the set of “City” because I never went near the set, never thanked Pevney, never set foot back on Star Trek territory after they got done rewriting me—whether guys like Pevney and Larson and others you will soon meet in these pages, are stuffed full of wild blueberry muffins. Gee, folks, I wish I had a sense of theater. Just even a teensy sense of theatuh.)
[2] Make that four . I picked up another one in 1986 for my Twilight Zone script, “Paladin of the Lost Hour.” It should be noted that the superlative scenarist Christopher Knopf also won three times, after this was published. I’m the only writer in the now-nearly-50-year history of the WGAw awards, to win this prestigious honor four times for solo work. I make a big deal point of mentioning this, not so much to pound my chest, as to establish right at the outset that I have solid credentials for asserting that I know what the fuck I’m doing when I write a script .
[3] In fact, though Roddenberry claimed that phrase as original with him—as the shorthand log-line he had dreamed up to penetrate the regimented thinking of network executives who ideate only in clone images of previous tv “successes”—I learned some years later that the phrase had been spoken off-the-top-of-the-head by Samuel Anthony Peeples at a dinner party where Roddenberry announced he was going in to see the NBC programmers. Sam, who also came up with the phrase “to boldly go” (and, yes, I cringe every time I hear that split infinitive), was brought in to save Star Trek the first time, when Roddenberry’s windy script of “The Cage” was rejected by the network. Sam then wrote “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” the teleplay that made NBC smile and got Roddenberry on the air. I have no idea if this particular nugget of truth has ever been published in the miles-high stack of books, pamphlets, fanzines, magazines, and assorted incunabula of the Trek industry. I’d tend to doubt it. Anything that casts shadow on the papal infallibility of the Great Bird of the Galaxy tends to get lost very fast. I’ll talk more about that a little later, but for the nonce, let it suffice that Peeple’s authorship of the phrase was conveyed to me not once, or twice, but on three separate occasions by three different people who were also seated at that dinner table on that evening. For his part, Sam Peeples is a fine and honorable gentlemen, and his loyalty to those who have employed him is legendary. Sam remains, if not precisely silent on the point, sedulously circumspect. I mention it, more than a trifle grimly, as a side-note to contentions I will assert later as to Gene’s need to abscond with others’ ideas and words, and to convince himself in very short order that they sprang fullblown from his own well of genius.
[4] Writers, no less than sculptors, ballerinas, workers in origami, have a way of deluding themselves as to the value of their work. To quote John Steinbeck: “The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.”
Writers, no less than professional race car drivers, scientists experimenting at the furthest edges of their specialty, strippers, all believe what they’re doing is sensational. When it doesn’t go down as sweetly as they think it should, they delude themselves that the work was great, just great, absolutely great; and the boneheaded masses (or critics) (or fans) are simply not noble enough to appreciate the grandeur of their creation.
I wrote, back in 1976, “I handed in my script to rave comments by Gene, Dorothy Fontana…and the then-story editor, John D.F. Black.” I wrote that in 1976, but all through this essay you will find examples of statements from Roddenberry, Coon, Pevney, and any passerby who cared to dump a load of rat-puke on my abilities, attesting to how
[2] Make that four . I picked up another one in 1986 for my Twilight Zone script, “Paladin of the Lost Hour.” It should be noted that the superlative scenarist Christopher Knopf also won three times, after this was published. I’m the only writer in the now-nearly-50-year history of the WGAw awards, to win this prestigious honor four times for solo work. I make a big deal point of mentioning this, not so much to pound my chest, as to establish right at the outset that I have solid credentials for asserting that I know what the fuck I’m doing when I write a script .
[3] In fact, though Roddenberry claimed that phrase as original with him—as the shorthand log-line he had dreamed up to penetrate the regimented thinking of network executives who ideate only in clone images of previous tv “successes”—I learned some years later that the phrase had been spoken off-the-top-of-the-head by Samuel Anthony Peeples at a dinner party where Roddenberry announced he was going in to see the NBC programmers. Sam, who also came up with the phrase “to boldly go” (and, yes, I cringe every time I hear that split infinitive), was brought in to save Star Trek the first time, when Roddenberry’s windy script of “The Cage” was rejected by the network. Sam then wrote “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” the teleplay that made NBC smile and got Roddenberry on the air. I have no idea if this particular nugget of truth has ever been published in the miles-high stack of books, pamphlets, fanzines, magazines, and assorted incunabula of the Trek industry. I’d tend to doubt it. Anything that casts shadow on the papal infallibility of the Great Bird of the Galaxy tends to get lost very fast. I’ll talk more about that a little later, but for the nonce, let it suffice that Peeple’s authorship of the phrase was conveyed to me not once, or twice, but on three separate occasions by three different people who were also seated at that dinner table on that evening. For his part, Sam Peeples is a fine and honorable gentlemen, and his loyalty to those who have employed him is legendary. Sam remains, if not precisely silent on the point, sedulously circumspect. I mention it, more than a trifle grimly, as a side-note to contentions I will assert later as to Gene’s need to abscond with others’ ideas and words, and to convince himself in very short order that they sprang fullblown from his own well of genius.
[4] Writers, no less than sculptors, ballerinas, workers in origami, have a way of deluding themselves as to the value of their work. To quote John Steinbeck: “The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.”
Writers, no less than professional race car drivers, scientists experimenting at the furthest edges of their specialty, strippers, all believe what they’re doing is sensational. When it doesn’t go down as sweetly as they think it should, they delude themselves that the work was great, just great, absolutely great; and the boneheaded masses (or critics) (or fans) are simply not noble enough to appreciate the grandeur of their creation.
I wrote, back in 1976, “I handed in my script to rave comments by Gene, Dorothy Fontana…and the then-story editor, John D.F. Black.” I wrote that in 1976, but all through this essay you will find examples of statements from Roddenberry, Coon, Pevney, and any passerby who cared to dump a load of rat-puke on my abilities, attesting to how
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